( latin America has continued it gradual shift to the right , after being largely governed by leftist leaders , a billionaire conservative has won the presidential race )

Sebastián Piñera Wins Chile’s Presidential Election

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Sebastián Piñera voting in Santiago on Sunday. He said recent overhauls in Chile have scared off investors and sent the economy on a downward spiral.CreditEsteban Felix/Associated Press

By Pascale Bonnefoy and Ernesto Londoño
Dec. 17, 2017
Leer en español

SANTIAGO, Chile — Chileans on Sunday gave former President Sebastián Piñera a new term in office, rejecting his opponent’s call to build on the social and economic changes set in motion by the incumbent, Michelle Bachelet.

Mr. Piñera’s victory marks the latest shift to the right in a region that until recently was largely governed by leftist leaders who rose to power promising to build more egalitarian societies.

Mr. Piñera vowed on Sunday night to govern for all Chileans.

“Chile needs dialogue and collaboration more than confrontation,” he said after a cordial televised meeting with his opponent, Alejandro Guillier.

The decisive 9-point victory, which came as a surprise because recent polls had suggested the race was a tossup, showed that millions of Chileans saw Mr. Piñera as best suited to jump-start economic growth and to set the tone for contentious social debates. Among them is one over a same-sex marriage bill before Congress.

Celebrations erupted on the streets and in Mr. Piñera’s campaign headquarters a couple of hours after polls closed.

Congratulating Mr. Piñera for what he described as a “solid victory,” Mr. Guillier called on his followers to learn the lessons from his defeat. He said they should listen more to constituents, renew political leadership and draw closer to social movements.

Mr. Guillier vowed to help lead a “constructive opposition” in Congress to defend the “reforms we believe in.”

Mr. Piñera, a 68-year-old billionaire who governed Chile from 2010 to 2014 — having been both preceded and succeeded by Ms. Bachelet — moved to the right politically as he campaigned for a second term in this deeply polarized nation.

His victory appeared inevitable during the early months of the race. But the contest tightened considerably. After the first round of voting on Nov. 19. Mr. Guillier, 64, a former journalist and sociologist who vowed to build on Ms. Bachelet’s reform agenda, emerged as the second candidate in the runoff.

Chile’s presidential election is the first in a series that may alter the political trajectory of Latin America. Voters in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay will elect presidents in 2018.

“Chile is helping kick off a year of important elections throughout the region, and many of the divides seen there will be repeated in their own way in the races to come,” said Shannon K. O’Neil, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Today’s election pits not just the left versus right for the presidency, but also reflects a lighter version of the insider-outsider drama that is developing in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.”

Throughout the race, many voters in Chile expressed deep dissatisfaction with the political establishment and described their choice as one between the lesser of two evils.

“We lack a person that sparks enthusiasm in the country,” said Julio Salviat, a university professor and former sports journalist. “We’re voting for the least bad one, not the best. We’re at a crossroads we shouldn’t be in.”

Julio Preusser, 90, an engineer, agreed, but said he had come to see Mr. Piñera as the most palatable.

“Guillier lacks a significant political trajectory,” he said. “I don’t know how he got to where he is. Piñera is better prepared. I don’t quite like him, but he’s the least bad.”

Some Chileans expressed concern that Mr. Piñera’s policies would benefit wealthy Chileans at the expense of the middle class, which expanded during the Bachelet era, and the poor.

“The middle class is always on the losing end, and with his victory there will be an economic project for those who have resources,” said Verónica Soto, a nurse at a public hospital. “It will absolutely be a pro-business government.”

After performing more poorly than polls suggested he would in the first round, Mr. Piñera made overtures to the far right, a small but animated base. José Antonio Kast, a conservative candidate and a champion of the Pinochet dictatorship, got almost 8 percent of the vote.

Mr. Piñera promised to halt the same-sex marriage bill Ms. Bachelet introduced in August and said he would improve the conditions of military officers serving sentences for crimes against humanity.

He warned that Mr. Guillier would empower the “extreme left,” derailing an economy that has been growing slowly and is grappling with the low international price of copper, Chile’s main export.

Yet, the left retains substantial appeal in Chile. Center and leftist candidates captured a total of 42 percent of the vote in November, although some factions felt Ms. Bachelet’s reforms didn’t go far enough.

Supporters of Mr. Guillier at a campaign rally in Santiago last week. He favored continuing the changes put in place by President Michelle Bachelet.CreditEsteban Felix/Associated Press

Mr. Guillier won 22 percent of the vote during the first round. Beatríz Sánchez, a journalist who led the leftist Frente Amplio coalition, exceeded expectations, coming a close third with 20 percent of the vote.

“The Frente Amplio votes were not in support of Bachelet’s reforms, but rather in protest of the New Majority and how it has handled them,” said Roberto Funk, a political scientist at the University of Chile.

The vote appears to mark the end of the political career of Ms. Bachelet, a transformative leader who championed women’s rights at home and abroad and set in motion comprehensive economic and social reforms.

She will leave office in March as the last woman leading a government in the Americas.

Under Ms. Bachelet’s leadership, higher taxes were levied on large corporations to pay for free higher education for low-income students; abortion in some circumstances was legalized; and union rights were strengthened.

And a new electoral system approved during her government loosened the grip on political power that traditional parties enjoyed, opening the door to greater participation by minority parties, women and independents.

Ms. Bachelet also set in motion a process to reform the Pinochet-era Constitution and the private pension system.

Mr. Piñera accused her government of scaring off investors, deepening the public debt and sending Chile’s economy on a downward spiral. He promised to reverse some of these changes and to spur the economy by reducing state bureaucracy, offering incentives to investors, lowering taxes on corporate earnings and spending more on infrastructure projects.

His government, however, will face significant hurdles in Congress, where his coalition of parties did not win a majority in the November elections.

As of March, for the first time since the country’s return to democracy in 1990, with the appearance of the Frente Amplio, politics will not be dominated by the same two coalitions, and the composition of Congress will be younger, more female and politically diverse.

Ms. Bachelet congratulated Mr. Piñera during a call Sunday night, and agreed to meet him for breakfast on Monday to start coordinating a transition of power. The president-elect said he hoped he could count on Ms. Bachelet’s “experience and wisdom.” And he told her he was envious of the new chapter in her life.

Chilean magnate Sebastian Piñera coasted to victory Sunday in his bid for a second presidential term, easily beating a center-left candidate by promising to kick-start the country’s stagnant economy.

The results in a runoff election continued a shift in recent years of Latin American voters veering away from populism and leftist social initiatives and toward right-of-center candidates promising economic growth. Peru, Argentina, Brazil and now Chile have seen the installation of presidents who place greater priority on stimulating the economy and balancing the books over social programs and subsidized services.

Like much of Latin America, Chile has been hurt by the global decline in prices of commodities on which its economy depends.

The conservative Piñera ran a campaign that promised incentives to re-energize the economy, which is growing at a sluggish 1.4% rate this year. His opponent, Alejandro Guillier, a senator and former TV anchor, had promised to build on outgoing President Michelle Bachelet’s social reforms, promote urban development and possibly raise taxes on the rich.

After receiving Guillier at his campaign headquarters in a hotel in downtown Santiago, Piñera briefly spoke with the press and promised to address the needs of “all Chileans, especially the most vulnerable and our middle class."

"Chile needs agreements rather than confrontations. It needs dialogue, collaboration, because that is how countries progress,” Pinera said. "What unites us is our love for Chile, our firm will to deliver the best of ourselves, so that we can have a fuller life."

Piñera, who previously served as president from 2010-14, received a congratulatory telephone call from Bachelet and told her: “I have never had the slightest doubt that both you and I want the best for Chile." He will take the oath of office in March.

Chile does not allow presidents to serve consecutive terms. Bachelet served from 2006-10 before relinquishing the office to Piñera. She then returned to office in 2014.

In a concession speech, Guillier congratulated Piñera for his "impeccable and solid triumph.” He added: “We have suffered a hard defeat but it’s when you lose that you learn the most.”

Turnout was anemic, running at less than 50% of the 14.3 million Chileans eligible. Analysts said before the vote that Guillier would need a heavy voter turnout to win after trailing Piñera by a wide margin in the first round in November.

Voters throughout the country were unmoved by government offers of free public transportation. Bachelet said she regretted backing a law during her first term that made voting voluntary instead of obligatory.

“I was wrong, I thought that people had a greater civic spirit than they have shown,” Bachelet told reporters after voting Sunday morning at a school in Santiago, the capital.

Piñera, who also voted at a school in downtown Santiago, said after casting his ballot that he was confident that Chileans “will choose the right path” and that the election’s outcome would determine the country’s path for “many decades.”

Guillier voted in his native town of Antofagasta, a mining city on Chile’s northern coast.

“This has been the most intense year of my life,” Guillier said before boarding a flight for Santiago. The former broadcaster entered politics in 2013 with a victorious Senate campaign.

Interviewed after voting in Santiago, public relations executive Sonia Wulf said she voted for Piñera and “growth and development” because policies under Bachelet were too similar to the “populist model that resembles Venezuela.”

Providencia fashion designer Carla Escobedo said she voted for Guillier because of his more liberal social beliefs. “My problem with Piñera is that he is against abortion and gay marriage, " she said.

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